On the Web, with Dynaranges, you can make your report length determined by how the user interacts with the report. Dynaranges allow you to specify a single row of data and then determine what happens to that row when the user interacts with it in report mode.

It is a powerful Web component because you can create completely customised, dynamic reports that allows users to explore your data without restrictions while keeping a structure of a formatted report.

You can use the following as datasources in a Dynarange:

• Subsets
• Formulas
• Relational Queries

Dynaranges can be on either columns or rows. This means that both axes of your report can be dynamic. In addition, if you select a subset that contains hierarchical structure, the user can double click to drill down to the next level of the data, and the report will expand automatically.

Relational Dynaranges allow you to write a relational (SQL) query via an ODBC connection and return rows of a single column dynamically. You can then use ODBCDATA() functions to pull out the additional columns you require. The report expands and contracts with the data you are returning.

Everything in the Dynarange range will be calculated. This means that non-subset values (eg spreadsheet formulas) can be included and the results will be calculated at runtime with the Dynarange.

OK. An example.

Attribute Subset in a Dynarange

Download the example here.

This contains a Dynarange and subset based on attributes in the customer dimension. The user selects an attribute from the Customers dimension in the first combo box. This then filters the second combo box to show all the data values against that attribute name. The user can then filter the elements on the dynarow. If you look at the subset on the dynarow, you can see that the attributes are dynamic and pointing to the results of the combo box:

This is a handy dynarow style for filtering a sorting through a dimension with many attributes. Note: In the example, the elements returned to the second combo box (the attribute data) may be duplicated as it is displaying a value for each element in the dimension. You can remove duplicates only by writing a macro (that is attached to the combo box) to loop through an array of elements and picking out only the unique ones.